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Does a person watching a video on 3" smartphone screen with its built-in speaker get the same experience as someone who watches that exact same video in their top-of-the-line, pitch-black home-theater den with their HTPC?

KyleKatarn: To put my position simply, I don't get the issue because SomethingAwful can still put out LPs and still do it without ad revenue even if other people could monetize their LPs. It's not like any other Let's Player is forcing SA to stop putting out content. Nobody is depriving SA of anything.

Aaron86: If we're talking about people who are doing LPs for money and not for fun, laughs, and/or love of the game, SA's stance is understandable since such an LPer is in a way leeching off someone else's content and IP.

I'd never defend complaining about LPs and LPers simply because they're "bad" though.

I already posted about this earlier, but I disagree. I think they're adding value to the content, making the whole pie more valuable. I don't see why it matters if they're making money or not. There isn't economic rivalry. That's why I think commons works exceptionally well with content but commons doesn't work so well when it comes to rivalrous goods. The content is anti-rival. The physical manifestation, like a book or the bits on my hard drive, is what is subject to property laws.

If anyone is leeching off of other people's work, I would argue Nintendo is. Whether the LPs suck or not, the LPer used their own resources to record, edit, and master their video and upload it. Nintendo did nothing. Nintendo could hire people to make their own LPs and work on an expensive exclusivity deal with Youtube if they want the revenue.

Some of my favorite public domain books are ones that have the original work with many pages of commentary and footnotes added to them, sometimes even just for humor. There are many different translations of Tao Te Ching available with many different interpretations and explanations added in. Even without IP, people would still be wise to a person removing an author's name and putting their own name on it. Without IP, I can see new books being re-released with the original work but addded commentary from different perspectives, like a libertarian commentary or a socialist commentary on Harry Potter without needing permission or approval, or some shit like that.